Tag Archives: Verdict

The Perversion Of Justice Continues

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When something is called a crime but has no victim and the people who were supposedly injured by the ‘crime’ say that they were not injured, what is the appropriate punishment? In New York the punishment is to destroy the person who didn’t commit the crime because you dislike his politics and he might become President.

On Tuesday, Ed Morrissey at Hot Air posted the following screenshot and commentary:

So this is a pre-emptive penalty because no actual fraud occurred?

This quirk in New York’s appellate procedure certainly offers one explanation. Engoron and AG Letitia James want to use the process as the punishment, and want to denude Trump of his legitimate wealth right in the middle of a political campaign they oppose. The massive fine will force Trump to either leverage these properties — and with banks outside of New York, thanks to Engoron — or to sell them off and put a large chunk of his wealth into the hands of New York for years. 

Did Engoron deliberately scale up the judgment to put Trump in this position? Let’s just say that New York’s system incentivizes it — and based on his deportment in the trial, it’s a reasonable conclusion.

It’s tough to overstate the absurdity of this situation. Appellate courts exist to allow citizens to seek redress for injustices in trials, both criminal and civil, that would result in ruination otherwise. This stands that process on its head. To seek redress for an injustice in a New York courtroom, the citizen must participate in his ruination just to knock on the door — even if an injustice has truly occurred. 

Please follow the link to the article to see exactly what is going on. I firmly believe that this verdict will have a chilling effect on business growth in New York in the coming years.

 

A Legal Perspective

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On Saturday, Attorney Jonathan Turley posted an article at The Hill about the recent New York verdict against President Trump.

The article notes that Jonathan Turley is the J.B. and Maurice C. Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at the George Washington University Law School. He is well qualified to evaluate the verdict.

The article reports:

In laying the foundation for his sweeping decision against former President Donald Trump, Judge Arthur Engoron observed that “this is a venial sin, not a mortal sin.” Yet, at $355 million, one would think that Engoron had found Trump to be the source of Original Sin.

The judgment against Trump (and his family and associates) was met with a level of unrestrained celebration by many in New York that bordered on the indecent. Attorney General Letitia James declared not only that Trump would be barred from doing business in New York for three years, but that the damages would come to roughly $460 million once interest was included. 

That makes the damages against Trump greater than the gross national product of some countries, including Micronesia. Yet the court admitted that not a single dollar was lost by the banks from these dealings. Indeed, witnesses testified that they wanted to do more business with Trump, who was described as a “whale” client with high yield business opportunities. 

The article concludes:

In “Bonfire of the Vanities,” Tom Wolfe wrote about Sherman McCoy, a successful businessman who had achieved the status of one of the “masters of the universe” in New York. In the prosecution of McCoy for a hit-and-run, Wolfe described a city and legal system devouring itself in the politics of class and race. The book details a businessman’s fall from a great height — a fall that delighted New Yorkers.

It is doubtful Trump will end up as the same solitary figure wearing worn-out clothes before the Bronx County Criminal Court clutching a binder of legal papers. But you do not have to feel sorry or even sympathetic for Trump to see this award as obscene. The appeal will test the New York legal system to see if other judges can do what Judge Engoron found so difficult: set aside their feelings about Trump.

New York is one of our oldest and most distinguished bars. It has long resisted those who sought to use the law to pursue political opponents and unpopular figures. It will now be tested to see if those values transcend even Trump.

If the verdict is not overturned on appeal, it will be interesting to see what its impact will be on the business climate of New York. I suspect that the businesses that President Trump runs in New York City and State bring in considerable tax revenue. New York may have just shot itself in the foot.

This Is Very Concerning

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CBS News reported on Tuesday that Jennifer Crumbley, the mother of the Oxford High School shooter, has been found guilty of four counts of involuntary manslaughter.

The article reports:

Jury deliberations, which lasted 11 hours, began Monday after a week-long trial to determine if the mother bears any responsibility for the Oxford High School shooting, where her son killed four students, Justin Shilling, Madisyn Baldwin, Tate Myre, and Hana St. Juliana, and injured seven other people on Nov. 30, 2021.

The jury foreperson told CBS News Detroit’s Andres Gutierrez that one factor that the jury focused on was that Jennifer Crumbley was the last adult with the gun before her son used it in the mass shooting. 

Jennifer Crumbley is the first parent in the United States to go on trial in a mass school shooting carried out by their child. 

Mrs. Crumbley bought the gun for her son. That was really stupid, but was it any more stupid than a parent who buys a sports car for their high school child who secretly drinks? The school knew the child was troubled. The school asked that the child be taken to therapy (obviously too late). What is the school’s responsibility? Does the school have a responsibility to monitor a troubled child and keep him away from other students?

I really think this is a bad decision. Buying the child a gun was really stupid, but that really wasn’t the problem. Would the child have gotten hold of a different weapon and done the same thing? This will set a very bad precedent.

 

 

 

Revealing The Problems In America’s Justice System

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On Tuesday, The New York Post posted an article about the verdict in the trial of Igor Danchenko.

The article reports:

A key source for the salacious and discredited Trump-Russia dossier was acquitted by a federal jury Tuesday, in a case that nevertheless produced several bombshells about the FBI’s handling of its probe into the 45th president’s 2016 campaign.

The Virginia panel cleared Igor Danchenko of four counts of lying to the bureau following approximately 10 hours of deliberation across two days after the case judge dropped a fifth count against him last week.

The verdict was the second acquittal at trial in a case brought by special counsel John Durham in connection with the conduct of the FBI counterintelligence probe nicknamed “Crossfire Hurricane.”

Despite Danchenko’s acquittal, the trial produced a series of revelations about the FBI — including testimony from a bureau analyst that it had offered Christopher Steele, the former MI6 spy who compiled the dossier, $1 million in October 2016 to make its outrageous claims against Trump stick.

Court documents filed by Durham last month also indicated the FBI employed Danchenko as a paid confidential source for more than three-and-a-half years — hiring him even as he was being investigated for his role in compiling the dossier.

If he was the source for dossier and the dossier was discredited, how is he not guilty of lying?

The article notes:

The trial also revealed that Helson and other agents did no due diligence on Danchenko’s background when a simple check would have revealed suspicions of his role in Steele’s project.

“Don’t feel bad for the FBI agents,” Durham told the jury on Monday during closing arguments. “There are things that they didn’t do that they quite clearly should have done.”

Trump White House veterans lamented the verdict, with former White House press secretary Sean Spicer calling it “unbelievably disappointing.”

“We’ve been waiting and waiting and told to hold our breath, there’s more coming — just be patient, be patient,” Spicer said on his Newsmax show “Spicer & Co.” “This is — I don’t even think disappointing does justice to how bad this is.”

Ric Grenell, the former acting director of national intelligence, argued in a tweet that the verdict doesn’t exonerate the government officials who pushed falsehoods about alleged Trump-Russia collusion.

“Danchenko and the FBI both lied in and about the Steele dossier,” Grenell wrote. “They made outlandish claims that never materialized. A jury saying that Danchenko didn’t lie doesn’t clear up how the lies were pushed by our government.”

The article explains the charge and the acquittal:

The case against Danchenko turned on a phone call he claimed to receive from someone he believed was Sergei Millian, a Belarusian-American businessman, who was purportedly in touch with people connected to Trump and told Danchenko about a false conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia.

Prosecutors said phone records showed no evidence of a call between Danchenko and Millian and that Danchenko had no reason to believe Millian, a Trump supporter he’d never met, was suddenly going to be willing to provide disparaging information about Trump to a stranger.

Is there anyone honest in Washington?

The Conservative Treehouse posted an article explaining why the Durham investigation is not going to find anyone guilty of anything–the investigation is simply there to cover for the previous misdeeds of the deep state.

Pouring Gasoline On A Raging Fire

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Yesterday Fox News reported that the Judge in the trial of Derek Chauvin was not pleased with the recent remarks made by Representative Maxine Waters.

The article reports:

A lawyer defending Derek Chauvin, who is on trial for the death of George Floyd, cited Rep. Maxine Waters’, D-Calif., comments to Minnesota protesters over the weekend in court on Monday.

“And now that we have [a] U.S. representative … threatening acts of violence in relation to this specific case, it’s it’s mind boggling…,” Attorney Eric Nelson said, as he attempted to argue that the jury may have been unduly influenced by external factors.

Judge Peter Cahill said that he wished elected officials would stop referencing the case “especially in a manner that is disrespectful to the rule of law” so as to let the judicial process play out as intended.

He added, however, that he did not believe the comments unduly influenced the jury as they had been told not to watch the news.

I hate to be cynical here, but does anyone actually believe that the jury followed the Judge’s orders not to watch the news? The jury in this trial should have been sequestered from the beginning (after the location of the trial was moved). There is no way this could ever be considered a fair trial–jurors know that if they return a not-guilty verdict there will be riots. There will probably be riots anyway, but I believe that the members of the jury fear for their safety if they produce a not-guilty verdict. Whatever the verdict is, it will probably be appealed and the country will go through more strife.

That being said, I have no idea what the correct verdict should be. I wasn’t in the courtroom. I would simply like to see rioters arrested and held in jail for a minimum of thirty days without bail so that they could cool off. That might discourage future riots. Meanwhile, I would like to know what stealing and burning buildings have to do with protesting.

When Justice Takes A Vacation

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Yesterday the U.K. Daily Mail posted an article about Mohiussunnath Chowdhury, a 27-year-old Uber driver, who attacked police with a sword outside Buckingham Palace while repeatedly screaming Allahu Akbar.

The article reports:

A man who attacked police with a sword outside Buckingham Palace while repeatedly screaming Allahu Akbar has been found not guilty of preparing acts of terrorism.

Mohiussunnath Chowdhury, 27, told jurors his claims to support ISIS were ‘in jest’ and his attack was because he was ‘depressed’ and ‘wanted police to kill him’.

They unanimously acquitted the Uber driver, who lashed out at three officers on August 25 last year.

One of the officers said he had ‘fought for his life’ in the terrifying incident but a jury had failed to reach a verdict in June this year. 

After that trial collapsed, Chowdhury was held at Belmarsh Prison – where he passed the time sketching pictures of an Islamist terrorist gunning down a man outside Number 10.

Please follow the link above and read the entire article. It is disturbing. This man is deeply troubled if not radicalized. He needs to be either locked up in jail or in a mental institution. It is a pretty safe bet that if he is allowed to be free he will eventually kill someone.

The Verdict Is In

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The Associated Press is reporting that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was convicted on all charges Wednesday in the Boston Marathon bombing by a federal jury. The question now is whether or not he will receive the death penalty.

The article reports:

Tsarnaev folded his arms, fidgeted and looked down at the defense table as he listened to one guilty verdict after another on all 30 counts against him, including conspiracy and deadly use of a weapon of mass destruction. Seventeen of those counts are punishable by death.

The verdict – reached after a day and a half of deliberations – was practically a foregone conclusion, given his lawyer’s startling admission at the trial’s outset that Tsarnaev carried out the terror attack with his now-dead older brother, Tamerlan.

Tsarnaev‘s defense lawyer, Judy Clarke, has argued that Tsarnaev, who was nineteen at the time of the bombing, committed the crime because he was under the influence of his older brother, Tamerlan. That may be so, but it doesn’t excuse what he did. Tsarnaev had (and has) free choice in choosing his actions, and now he is being called to take responsibility for those actions.

Whatever happens to Tsarnaev, the victims of the bombing will never be able to go back to where they were before the event–the loved ones will still be lost and the major injuries will still be there. Executing Tsarnaev will not change anything that has happened, but I am not sure anything will be gained by keeping him alive either.

 

The Verdict Is In

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The jury in Florida has found George Zimmerman not guilty. The jury made that decision based on the evidence and information they were given. None of us are privy to the discussions that went on among the jury, and we would do well to accept that they made the correct decision based on the evidence they were given.

It is my hope that those people attempting to stir up racial strife based on the incident and trial involving George Zimmerman and Trayvon Martin will accept this verdict. It is very unfortunate that Trayvon Martin is dead, but it would have been even more unfortunate to send a man to jail for twenty years because he defended himself against a physical threat. My sympathies go out to both families–to the Martin family for the loss of their son and to George Zimmerman as he strives to go back to living a normal life.

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